Growing up in Long Island and San Francisco, photographer AndéWhyland dreamed of moving to Manhattan from a young age. “Always feeling like a misfit, a city as large as New York had to have a place for me and a way to survive,” she says.
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In 1979, Whyland finally arrived, settling into a first-floor apartment in the East Village where she paid a mere $130 a month. Two friends in the building were regulars at Club 57 – a nightclub on St. Marks Place that hosted experimental art and performance events. They asked Whyland to model in a fashion show that featured “all kinds of weird props and some meat thrown around”. Soon enough, Whyland was hooked.
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“New York gave me the freedom to be myself for the first time in my life,” she says. “Making money was not a priority, but staying out late and having fun was. Everyone I got to know in the clubs was celebrating our newfound family, and the opportunity to do anything.”
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